Translating toots with Workflow

If you’re using Mastodon on an iPhone, you’re probably using the excellent Amaroq client. For some very good reasons, it doesn’t have a built-in feature to translate toots into your own language. That’s OK, though. We can implement that ourselves!

This will walk you through the process of installing Workflow on your iPhone, then configuring Amaroq to use it to translate toots from your timeline. There are a lot of steps here, but most of them are for the one-time setup. Don’t worry: you won’t have to do all of these every time you want to read something written in French.

Setting up Workflow

First, install Workflow. It’s an app (now owned and supported by Apple) that lets you automate things on your iPhone. Side note: if you’re even slightly techie or think you might like to be, Workflow is an amazing and friendly way to start writing your own iOS features.

You’ll see a prompt: “What language would you like to translate to?” Tap English to change to the language of your choice, then Done to remember your decision. (You can always edit this later, but you’ll have to do it manually.)